RedEyed Savior
by thevixendixon
Summary: songfic to the killer's 'when you were young' using only 'reworked' but actual scenes from the show. remy has been seen talking like a gentleman, sometimes. ROMY


I don't own the song 'when you were young' or x-men evolution. I want to say I own the story at least but since all the parts are actual scenes from the show (can you tell where they're all from?) I don't know how much of that I own either. I do know that I spent enough of my time on this that something has to belong to me. I also don't mean to be taking some religious stand with this. 

So the inner dialogue part isn't supposed to really be the devil talking to her or a devil like psyche, but if you really want it to be that way…. and I know I said I was bored with romy, but I couldn't help it. Numbers indicate different verses.

* * *

**1. You sit there in your heartache**

Rogue shivered as the cold wind brushed past her exposed skin. Her arm unaccustomed to such freedom, her face moist with tears. She grabbed her throbbing head as she stumbled across the roof and slumped down against a nearby wall. She was done. It was too much.

**Waiting on some beautiful boy to  
****To save you from your old ways**

She couldn't exactly wrap her mind around it. Could it all be in her head? An attack from Mesmero or one of the psyches. Maybe it was Jean. She erased some kid's memory before so it wasn't totally beyond her. She knew having Scott would never be enough for her. She wanted Rogue gone. Completely gone. Or maybe her past really was coming back for her.

Sabertooth, Juggernaut… Kurt. They were all such a long time ago. They were gone. They were supposed to be gone. Fight, touch, done. She could barely even remember touching that Webber kid. But a moment ago she was him. Really was him. The powers, the voices, the thoughts. Why couldn't they just stay in the past?

Was it really supposed to be so hard? Where was Mother Theresa, Daddy Warbucks, Tom Joad? Where was the angel that was supposed to take HER pain away?

**You play forgiveness**

Just a small moment of lucidity. Where Rogue finally found a place, a foothold, not away but separate from the others. And in this moment she broke down in self-pity and hurt, an overwhelming sense of remorse washing over her. Like a friend at a funeral. Apologizing for what? Sorry that they couldn't do anything, change things, make everything better? Did it matter anyways? Just as long as someone was sorry? As long as she was sorry?

A friend at her own funeral.

**Watch it now  
****Here he comes**

**2. He doesn't look a thing like Jesus**

There went another one. Those explosions. They reminded her of the fourth of July. Not because of those huge fireworks in the air. The fun little ones that the neighborhood boys would play around with in the streets after the town did the real fireworks. Rogue waited all summer for that day. The birthday of the nation her teachers used to say in school but she didn't care much about that. Even the sky fireworks weren't really all that interesting. It was being eleven and sitting on the neighbor's dusty car bumper with all the other non high schoolers watching those teenage boys throwing cherry bombs at each other and the flashing fireworks and the twirling ones and the colorful ones and the loud ones and especially the little ones. They would give those to her and all the other kids.

Except those never made her uneasy. Not like these.

But no matter how uneasy they made her feel, she followed anyways. Like a moth to a flame. Well, more like a moth to one of those bug zapper things whose sole purpose of existence is to kill the moth. She edged along the side of the shipping containers preparing to round the corner. If only she could surprise him….

Gasp. She suddenly stood face to face with Magneto's little explosion factory himself. It seemed she wasn't the only one using the old plan 's is for surprise.' Only difference was his plan worked.

Just being thrown off guard by the potentially life threatening enemy and there was only one thing she noticed. Those eyes. Red with black. Unlike anything she had ever seen before. The way they… mesmerized. And, and, they were so, beautiful. Like little fourth of July explosions themselves. That danced. Little beautiful, mesmerizing, explosions that danced.

She barely even noticed the card he handed her intending to blow her arm off. The King of Hearts.

**But he talks like a gentleman**

"We do what we have to, right _Chere_?"

She hated when he called her that. She wasn't anyone's chere and was damn well proud of that. Chere was the kind of word used for those prissy girls attending dance parties in those Jane Austen type stories. The 1700's or 1800's (or whatever it was) were over and she was not a Jane Austen girl. Never was, never would be.

And the way he said it. Accenting it because, what? She wouldn't notice otherwise? He said it because he knew how much it bothered her. How it made her skin crawl to hear it, especially from him. Here they were fighting, physically fighting, and he has the gall to call her chere. He just kidnapped her! It was just to screw her up wasn't it? Get her distracted. Make it so she couldn't think straight. Oh how she would love to show him the flaws in that plan. Problem was, it was working.

She should've been thinking about where they were going and what exactly the red-eyed rat was trying to accomplish. But instead she was now picturing herself in a white dress with ruffles, and maybe pink lace along the top. She was wearing really long white silk gloves, not because she had to but because she wanted to, and she would have three-inch heels. And a diamond necklace. And she was a little tanner and a little thinner and she maybe didn't have powers. And he would come to her red eyes and all and offer his hand to her and she would place hers in it and he would ask permission to whisk her all around the giant ballroom in front of all the other people that would be jealous of her dancing like a leaf in the wind, him holding her like branch, and then he would smile in that way of his and he would say it. Chere.

Ohhh.

Darn that Jane Austen.

**Like you imagined  
****When you were young**

**3. Can we climb this mountain  
****I don't know  
****Higher now than ever before  
****I know we can make it if we take it slow  
****Let's take it easy  
****Easy now  
****Watch it go**

The mansion was so beautiful. Beautiful and huge. That was what she thought when she first saw it and she assumed that was what everyone thought when they first saw the mansion. But now she stood at the balcony and traced the little cracks in the railing with her gloved finger. The tiny innumerable imperfections that littered the house grounds. Crack on top of crack, building the foundation of that which she now stood.

She felt the air from behind her move as Kurt's tail wagged with a mind of its own. Poor kid. He wasn't like a dog. His tail was wagging but he wasn't happy. He was fine once. Furry, but fine. Now, with one look at all those little cracks and scars that he never even knew he had, and this was how he stood. Tail wagging away.

"And listen Kurt, I really do know what you're going through." It seemed she wasn't the only one with secrets, trying to get through life with all the unanswered questions. Well, she guessed, every house has its cracks. Every person has a past. "We'll both keep looking and we'll find our answers together someday, okay?"

"Yeah," he agreed almost hopefully, "Okay."

**4. We're burning down the highway skyline  
****On the back of a hurricane  
****That started turning  
****When you were young  
****When you were young**

"Admit the truth, Rogue." The truth? You're the one that lied to me. You betrayed me. Risty was my friend. I thought I could trust her. I thought she cared about me. You used me!

"I adopted you when you were four." What? You're lying again. It's not true.

"No!"

"Search the memories." Four? All these years. And you've been using me from the start. My whole life? None of it was real? It's all just been, a lie?

"You are my daughter."

**5. And sometimes you close your eyes  
****And see the place where you used to live  
****When you were young**

This wasn't real. It couldn't be. But it seemed so RIGHT. It felt too right. They all did. She just wanted a simpler time. There used to be a simpler time. When things weren't exactly easy, but they were simple. She remembered it. Or she thought she did. Was that real? She clenched her eyes shut and held her head in her hands. That's right. Home. She could go….

"Home." Irene didn't need her powers to know where the girl was going. Although the relationship the two shared was often more bitter than sweet, she loved that child as if she were her own and knew, in some way, she was loved back. Yes, she would be going home now, she thought sadly. "Or what she thinks is home."

He sat on his unmade bed and quick thoughts of Mom yelling at him to clean his room flashed through his mind, but it didn't seem all that important now. He picked up the old football photo album, the one Dad urged him to keep since he was ten so he could impress 'all those college recruiters.' Page after page of watching the little boy with the blonde hair grow up. Games, teams, friends, trophies, and of course football. "All this is me?" Came the southern accent. "Mine?" He put the album down and walked to the dresser lined with the trophies that he suddenly couldn't quite remember receiving completely. He looked into the mirror expecting to see the little blonde boy from the pictures, or some variation of him, but wasn't all that surprised at the not blonde figure staring back.

This girl in the mirror was him too. Or her? Was she?

"But…" Cody. Rogue. "Which me am I?" She feared this was a question for which she might never get an answer.

**6. They say the devil's water  
****It ain't so sweet  
****You don't have to drink right now  
****But you can dip your feet  
****Every once in a little while**

"Rogue, it's the right thing. You know it is." Her brother's words echoed in her head as she stared at the statue of Raven before her. I'm the only one that can save her? (But she doesn't deserve it Rogue. She doesn't deserve you and she doesn't deserve to be saved.)

"No. I, I won't do it." She quickly turned around and stalked off in the other direction.

"If you don't help her, this will haunt you for the rest of your life. Prove that you're not like her." (He's right you know. You'd never forgive yourself. If for nothing else because you would show her how much like her you really are. This is the reason you left the Brotherhood. The reason you left Mystique. So you can do what is right.) Rogue turned back around. Looked into her mother's stone eyes. (Do it, Rogue./ Yes, Rogue, do it. Show her that you don't care. Show her that you're done with her./ No. Save her. For Kurt at least./ Kurt? He didn't care about you when he brought that thing back. Kurt has a real mother anyways. This isn't his fight./ Come to end the torment she said.) Rogue looked down at her hands. (End the torment. That's what you're here for. End it right. Save her life./ And what of the torment? What of the hell she's made of your life? She's a monster, Rogue. A demon. Give her what she really deserves. Send her to hell, Rogue. Send her to hell.)

Eyebrows furrowed. "Yeaaaaahhhhhhh!" she screamed as she threw the woman off the cliff to the rocky shore of her death below. A moment of weakness or her true calling, Rogue didn't care. Good or bad didn't matter. Right and wrong didn't matter.

"Nooooo!" Kurt cried in anguish.

What mattered now was that Mystique was gone.

**7. You sit there in your heartache  
****Waiting on some beautiful boy to  
****To save you from your old ways  
****You play forgiveness  
****Watch it now  
****Here he comes**

"Gambit, I had the chance to do something like this before and I didn't."

She didn't have to save her. She could've just walked away.

Rogue knew she didn't deserve to ask Kurt for his forgiveness. After everything she went through with betrayal and misplaced trust and hurt she betrayed the one person that truly considered her family, one thing she prayed for since childhood but never dreamt would actually happen. She was disgusted with herself for this fact probably more so than she was for her actions. Not only did Kurt's face not once show up in her mind as she threw their mother off that cliff, but she was actually angry with him for not considering her feelings, for being upset with her. Deep down she knew she could never do right by him again. But it was done. She was gone. Rogue couldn't turn back the hands of time, and even if she could, she wasn't completely sure she wouldn't just make the same mistake again. It was that thought that scared her most as it played through her mind over and over again, even as the memories of her actions continued to haunt her.

And here was this guy, this Acolyte, one of Magneto's lackeys, in the same exact position, but he was doing the right thing, the good thing. She knew helping Gambit save his father would not right her wrongs. It would not give her vindication. It wouldn't bring back Mystique. But maybe she could prove to herself that she wasn't totally evil. Maybe it could start her, not on a clean slate, but just a new one. Or maybe, despite everything, all she really wanted was to save this man. Either way, it didn't really matter. It was still something she had to do.

She clenched her fists in determination. "I need to do it now."

**8. He doesn't look a thing like Jesus  
****But he talks like a gentleman  
****Like you imagined  
****When you were young  
****(talks like a gentleman)  
****(like you imagined)  
****When you were young**

She pulled her arms around his neck. Looked at his face with his bright blue eyes that she could make out even in the darkness of that night. His long blonde hair ruffling in the wind as his white, feathered wings carried them both off gracefully through the night's sky. His arms embracing the frame of her body in support tightly. The man that saved her life. She smiled. "I think you really are an angel."

**9. I said he doesn't look a thing like Jesus  
****He doesn't look a thing like Jesus**

No. He doesn't look a whole lot like Jesus does he?

**But more than you'll ever know**

"So, what now?"

"I'm going back with the x-men." She looked once more into his red eyes before turning to walk away. "I don't care what you do."

He smiled at her in that way. "Sure you don't."

"Well, I better go." An attempt to thwart her hesitance.

He walked up behind her. "You'll be fine," he said as he reached out towards her. Held her hand in his. "Chere." Oh that Jane Austen.

"You've got people looking out for you." He slowly released his hold on her hand. She grasped at it and followed his pull, turning her around, unwilling to let go just yet.

And from that spot she watched as they parted ways Watched him walk off into the fog while attempting to squelch the cry in her head that suddenly she did care about what he was going to do and the impulse she had to just blurt it out and ask him.

It wasn't until he was long gone did she notice the object he left in her hand. An uncharged Queen of Hearts. His lucky lady.

* * *

so? 


End file.
